A skater with dog goes by the house at 35 Mt. Muir Ct. (in background with ivy front yard and garage) in Marinewood. Photo by Darryl Bush

A skater with dog goes by the house at 35 Mt. Muir Ct. (in background with ivy front yard and garage) in Marinewood. Photo by Darryl Bush

Photo: Darryl Bush

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Winnfred Evertt Wright was one of five suspects in the neglect death of a 19-month-old child arraigned today in a Marin County courtroom. Wright, Mary Campbell, Deirdre Hart Wilson, Carol Louise Bremner and Kali-Elaine Polk-Matthews made a brief appearance in court. The five share a Marinwood home with 13 children, all fathered by Wright. BY CHRIS STEWART/THE CHRONICLE less

Winnfred Evertt Wright was one of five suspects in the neglect death of a 19-month-old child arraigned today in a Marin County courtroom. Wright, Mary Campbell, Deirdre Hart Wilson, Carol Louise Bremner and ... more

Photo: CHRIS STEWART

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Deirdre Hart Wilson. hand out photo

Deirdre Hart Wilson. hand out photo

Photo: Darryl Bush

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Mary Campbell was one of five suspects in the neglect death of a 19-month-old child arraigned today in a Marin County courtroom. Winnfred Evertt Wright, Deirdre Hart Wilson, Carol Louise Bremner, lKali-Elaine Polk-Matthews and Campbell made a brief appearance in court. The five share a Marinwood home with 13 children, all fathered by Wright. BY CHRIS STEWART/THE CHRONICLE less

Mary Campbell was one of five suspects in the neglect death of a 19-month-old child arraigned today in a Marin County courtroom. Winnfred Evertt Wright, Deirdre Hart Wilson, Carol Louise Bremner, lKali-Elaine ... more

Photo: CHRIS STEWART

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Monstrous conditions of the Family's children / Court unseals records detailing toddler's death

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The horrifying details of the starvation death of a 19-month-old Marin County boy and the incredible neglect by his caretakers was brought to light Friday as reams of information were unsealed for the first time.

The death of Ndigo Campisi-Nyah-Wright on Nov. 13, 2001, had been shrouded in secrecy since leaked details of cult-like behavior and ritualistic abuse prompted Judge Terrence Boren to issue gag and sealing orders in the case.

The files that were released Friday do not contain significantly new information, but they offer glimpses into the monstrously sheltered conditions that 13 children were forced to live under and the adults' cruelty and indifference toward them.

Boren ordered the documents opened after Winnfred Wright, the self-anointed patriarch of the so-called Family, and two of the five women who lived with him pleaded guilty last month to child endangerment and neglect charges, ending the necessity of a trial.

Wright, 45, Mary Campbell, 38, and Deirdre Hart Wilson, 38, are scheduled to be sentenced March 3. The charges against a fourth suspect, Kali Polk- Matthews, 21, were dropped. A fifth co-defendant, Carol Bremner, died of leukemia last year.

The court files paint a picture of the defendants as practitioners of a bizarre cult-like system in which Wright was the supreme leader. The children were starved and terrorized, and the women willingly served as his sexual slaves.

Wright fathered 13 children -- six by Campbell, including Ndigo, and five by Wilson -- who lived by a "Book of Rules" that involved tying up the children, whipping them, forcing them to eat hot peppers and taping their mouths shut when they stole food or otherwise misbehaved.

"Whoever is making noise gets tape immediately," the rules stated.

One seized document, titled "Route to Ascension," had one of the girl's names written on it and was a handwritten list of tasks. No. 4 says, "Tape will be worn at all times."

Task 9 states, "Each and every night, (the girl) will be tied to a playpen in the 'baby room.' "

The "Book of Rules" says that if this child is ever discovered without tape on "she gets the board" -- meaning she would be forced to bend over a weight bench and be whipped with a belt.

The affidavits, search warrants and grand jury documents paint a hellish picture of children cowering all day inside a four-bedroom house with sheets over the windows, very little furniture, almost no toys and virtually no contact with the outside world.

Even when Ndigo's lifeless body was brought into Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Terra Linda, emergency room technicians described Campbell and the other women with her as "expressionless and monotone."

"When Dr. (Thomas) Meyer advised defendant Mary Campbell that Ndigo was dead, she did not show any emotion," according to a statement of facts presented to the grand jury.

According to the document, Bremner expressed happiness when doctors informed her that the coroner had arrived. "Good," she said, acting as if she were bored, "because we're ready to go home."

A subsequent examination of Ndigo showed numerous broken bones, including a fractured skull, malformed legs, a concave chest, a hump on his back and other ailments consistent with rickets caused by starvation.

Dr. Meyer testified that the bones were hard to see in X-rays because of a lack of calcium in the body.

Campbell told doctors she kept the child on a strict vegetarian diet, never brought him to the doctor and treated him with warm baths, washcloths and eucalyptus oil.

Investigators who subsequently visited the home described a dismal scene, hauntingly quiet despite the fact that 12 children were there. Marin County sheriff's investigators said "chant music" was playing and the only light in the house was from candles.

Wright, apparently unconcerned about his dead child, was reading to the other children "what appeared to be spiritual or religious teachings." Among the items confiscated from the home were seven loaded handguns and assault rifles, a 3-foot-long sword and martial arts weapons.

The court records also recounted a series of strange sexual advances and other incidents involving the group, including the death of another child in San Francisco, dating back to 1989.

All the children in the home were suffering from malnutrition and severe emotional and developmental problems caused by a lack of contact with the outside world, according to the doctors who examined them.

Defense lawyers argued that their clients were well-intentioned, if misguided, vegetarians who simply rejected modern medicine. But Ed Berberian, a Marin County assistant district attorney, said Friday that there is no justification for such behavior.

"I don't believe there is an excuse for raising children in that environment," Berberian said. "We haven't seen anything like this before, and hopefully we won't see anything like this again."